In dealing with turtles we have lighting , heat , water and food sources. All kind of things can come up and some may never be answered 100%. If mold , algae , fungus , organic .... thing happen fast with above ingredient's when maintenance is relaxed. Prevention is key in this hobby. Being pregnant and now a new baby it's understandable you have other things to do. We can not remove the lighting , not the water , not the heat but we can remove the food supply for any of the above problems. Organic waste is the supply of food here so getting back to your regular maintenance with water changes will correct this. Like to remove algae we cant remove the needed thing's so in that case one places live plants in tank which out competes the algae's for the food supply and algae dies off. Removing one of the elements needed for this problem to exist is the food source which we can control , remove it and problem corrects itself. Full maintenance , water changes to remove the organic waste will correct this along with a good cycled tank.

I would turn filter off , no water movement and use a paper towel as a broom pushing all floating matter into a corner . This will make it easier to remove. Clean all. A good filter maintenance with a healthy water change , a full change won't hurt. Once done let your filter run a few hours then put Scooter back in. Sliders are hardy so even if PH is off it won't hurt him , he breaths like us. May take two good cleaning but will correct this issue once waters parameters are balanced. All will be good , you done good with Scooter and you will be a good parent with your new child too. Again congratulations with your growing family !

Last edited by litefoot on Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Just did edit talking about the elements no real change in statement I made. I'm old sometimes I need to reword thing's.

Good on parameters that you can test for like PH ,ammonia , nitrite and nitrate but you still need to remove what's there presently before it takes over. A good cleaning. A cycled tank gets thing to the nitrate level where water changes remove's them . I treat water changes as part of cycling ! Almost there. You should look into the purgein I talked about it's great to break down / help remove the organic waste.

Good luck coming up with a schedule for the family , you may want four hands and 48 hours in a day for all.

Tania , are we on two different pages , I need to maybe explain another way ? To me , sorry , thought the path I gave was clear. You must remove the issue , a good cleaning all around cleaning , a healthy water change or full change. This needs to be done so tank can cycle which alone takes "5-7" weeks before you will get a stable reading. Good you have a test kit hope its not the strip kind but a drop type that's not expired. You need to read up on cycling a tank you will see reading's go from good to all over the place spiking here and there before they are stable and tank is cycled. Testing one day with readings that the kit test for being ideal does not mean you fixed all. Tank must cycle.

Did you already break all down and follow step by step so the tank can get started cycling properly which takes weeks to do ! There is no five minute fix here. If I'm reading this wrong and you did all correctly please show photo like to see what it looks like. I have been doing this over 50 years can tell a lot about water from just a look. Some long time turtles keepers are so good at this they don't have to even test there water. Please don't take this wrong , I'm doing this for the turtle but we must be on same page ! We want your turtle to be healthy with a healthy tank. They can hide problems well and for a long time before showing any symptoms. A regular vet will not see , even hide things from a Hep Vet , we don't want any of that happening for Scooter.